Praying Through New York City

From my Established in Grace blog post
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This Monday was Matthew and my 8 year anniversary. Matthew loves architecture and so we decided to spend the day walking around and seeing specific tall buildings that have architecture significance (don't ask me what the significance was, he picked them and we walked to them).  

 Traffic was pretty horrible going in and out (on the way out it took us 2 hours to go about 2 miles). But thankfully we'd brought a book on prayer we had been reading and spent our time reading and praying. In conjunction with our prayer book we decided to pray for our daughter to come home soon as we walked through New York City.  We picked 8 specific buildings we wanted to see and knew we'd see others as well as we walked to those. We prayed specifically for our daughter to come home soon at each of the eight buildings. 

   I'm an introvert and I don't like to draw attention to myself but to pray for my daughter was important. So we'd stop by or in these buildings and pray. Right there with crowds bustling around us. We prayed and God listened. I know He did. I could feel that joy and presence. His happiness in our prayers.  

   Reading our prayer book and praying through New York City enriched our anniversary on a deep level. To pray so earnestly and lovingly together with Matthew for our daughter created a deeper bond between us. I cannot tell you the peace I felt because of praying all throughout our anniversary together. Sometimes I want to do something "for myself." But what I have found is that when I make a purposeful effort to center the activity around God or make Him an intricate part, that it becomes much more than I could have anticipated. Those memories are the ones I treasure the most. I already feel that this anniversary will be a special one to remember and I am eager to see what God has done and will do in answer to those prayers for our daughter. I challenge you to think of how to creatively include God in a special activity or just a daily activity. I think you will find that it will do something incredible. It may not be what you think "incredible" will be, but it might be peace or joy or that calm glow in your spirit that says, Emmanuel: God with us.